The Dutch Harpsichord library offers an original harpsichord by Andreas Ruckers built in 1628. Due to its two manuals and many registers, the Ruckers harpsichord offers lots of unqiue sounds, sampled with 6 register combinations, including the upper 8', lower 8' (principal 8'), tutti, both 8' together, the 4' register as well as the lute stop.

The instruments of the Ruckers family represent the well-known and sought-after sound of Flemish harpsichords while ranking among the best harpsichords ever built. Their full and precious sound set out to influence the harpsichord designs in Spain, France, England and Germany.

Ruckers harpsichord - photo: Andreas E. Beurmann

Like all harpsichords, the Ruckers is not touch-sensitive. However, not any given note will sound exactly the same due to different resonances of body and strings.

Up to now, many keyboards and samplers represented harpsichords by always triggering off the exact same digital sample, leaving asterile sounding impression.

In order to pay tribute to the liveliness and depth of this antique instrument, we captured every sampled register with up to 8 variations per note.

Left side of the keyboard - photo: Andreas E. Beurmann

To complete the harpsichord experience, we recorded every register with 4 key release samples of each note.

Remaining in great condition in the collection of Andreas Beurmann, it is now available for the first time for your sampler within the Dutch Harpsichord library, presented in its original valotti tuning at 372 Hz (presets in 440 Hz are included as well).

Presets are included for HAlion®, Kontakt® (full version required) and EXS24® software samplers. Furthermore, the Dutch Harpsichord sample library contains an essay in German from Dr. Andreas Beurmann, explaining the background of the instrument.

The sample library contains nearly 3,700 single samples.

Recorded in the great sounding rooms of the Hasselburg estate, we employed Royer® R122V tube-driven ribbon microphones and vintage Neumann™ TLM170® microphones in conjunction with Crane Song™ Flamingo® preamps and Universal Audio™ 2192® digital converters. Recorded originally at 192 kHz/24 bits, the sample are available at the resolution of your choice.